 All right, so beyond Candyland whoo who's played Candyland? Yeah, who actually thinks Candyland is good There's some already out there I think there's some not already too though All right, well as long as we all agree Queen Forrestine is totally hot and Princess Lolli sucks. We're all set Okay, so let's let's just move along here. Oh, oh, I'm Scott. I'm Rick We host a podcast called Geek Nights that I guess she listens to and maybe some other people with nothing better to do Our dozens of fans from around the world will come to see these things the fan the fan is coming Okay, I'll warn you right now. We do a radio show. We lecture at tons of conventions We're gonna try to put this one up on YouTube But more importantly, we will not have time to take questions at the end So if you grab a flyer, which I apologize. These are leftover flyers from pecs East 2010 But they have a QR code and our URL if you go there We will have a thing where if you submit questions for this panel We are going to try to do a video Q&A session later from our studio in New York and attach it to the YouTube video This apartment I had a room that has studio equipment in it is therefore a studio All right, so let's move beyond Candyland to more Candyland So what's the deal with Candyland if you don't know already the way Candyland works is you shuffle a deck of cards Everyone you draw on your turn you draw a card you move to that color right? What is this game good for? It's good for teaching kids colors and how to count and that's pretty much it right It's not actually a good game. In fact, it's arguable whether it's even a game at all depending on your definition of game Right now. Why is that? I mean think about Candyland. What decisions do you make beyond will I play Candyland? You decide who will go first That is the only decision you're making Candyland right the game is you could just instead of playing Candyland You could just turn over the deck of cards and say there's Queen Frost Dean that would be rims card He wins or you could just flip a coin you could roll a d4 It's effectively the same thing me and rim flipping a coin calling heads and tails is the same as me and rim playing Candyland Mathematically speaking they are identical, but a lot of people like Candyland and they like games like Candyland and they enjoy Candyland Why is this well? These are the reasons why people like games like Candyland the theme I've already been going over the theme Queen Frost Dean totally hot Right, it's fun because you know you got Mr. If you have the real version which is the version in this picture, right? No other Candyland is valid You know what what's peppermint stick guy totally cool They recently changed it because a lot of the old candies were not familiar to modern children with modern sensibilities They weren't familiar when I was eating playing the game Education it teaches kids colors, right? It's valuable even though it might not teach you anything about playing games. It can teach you other things, right? Socialization while you're sitting around playing Candyland It's since you don't have to make any decisions You have plenty of time to talk and make jokes with everyone else about how Princess Lolly sucks and also Socialization in the sense of your your sort of getting those bonds people get when they play games I mean this game is going to be baby's first table flip. Yep Right, you've also got you know winning because I mean who wins isn't really dependent on you a different person wins every time Right, but you feel good when you win if you don't know any better now Think of a little bit a little bit about why Candyland? I mean what it's random, right? If I win I feel great. I won if I lose. Well, it was luck anyway Humans are really good at that sort of cognitive bias So the thing is there's a lot of people out there and I don't want you know What this is sound right because that the way I wrote this it sounds like a putting down these people But I'm not right is there people who are Candyland gamers even though they have moved beyond Candyland This is what they enjoy about games these four things and maybe a couple other things right now These people might be playing counter-strike that might be playing risk legacy. They might be playing eclipse But they're still in this mentality They primarily care about these things and they haven't taken sort of the next steps in terms of Competitiveness or understanding what's going on in games or really thinking about why they play games. There's nothing wrong with that It's totally cool. Everyone enjoys things for their own reasons. We don't though. We are not Candyland gamers We're slightly proud of that and we want more people to not be Candyland gamers because the biggest problem is that Candyland gamers and other gamers while we all can get along and be awesome to each other and have a good life And everything's cool. We can't play games together that well, right? It's like you like games I like games you like counter-strike. I like counter-strike when you both play counter-strike at the same time doesn't go so well Right, so this is why you know We need some people to step up their game out of Candyland Go beyond Candyland and it comes to you This is a gaming convention primarily centered on people playing games and seeing concerts yet You are up relatively early on a Friday morning in a Care somewhat to see people talking about stuff when you could be out there playing eclipse right now Alright, so let's let's talk about keeping your mind the idea of the Candyland gamer as the person who enjoys games for primarily these four reasons Right, so that person may move on after playing Candyland to play Monopoly All right, and the thing is with Monopoly is it's really not that much different from Candyland Even if you play by the real rules, which nobody does Now why is that why don't people play with the real rules Monopoly is actually an almost Playable game almost if you play it by the rules of the game as it was originally written I say that in quotes because the origins of Monopoly are a complicated mess But what do people do to the game? They add free parking and they remove the auctions the auctions at a huge skill component Valuation and auction skills the free parking as a huge luck component So they're basically taking an already pretty random game and adding as much randomness as they can They're taking a game. They're trying to move away from Candyland because they're older now They you know Candyland is for small children, but they miss turning this more like Candyland, right? They're bringing Monopoly down instead of leaving it sort of where it is And it's already bad to begin with and they're making it worse and this is very common This is something humans do. I mean you guys have all played Monopoly How many of you actually know the real rules of Monopoly and have played it two years in the nerds two years ago Magfest we talked about this and someone in the audience like you guys are wrong and he goes He just starts looking at his cell phone and we keep talking and then like five minutes later He stands up and says they're right. There's no free parking. It's not like we thought free parking You know happens even in free parking nothing nothing happens even at a free parking. He looks so crushed, too. It's just like I know anyway People they take Monopoly they modify it to be worse and the things they enjoy are those same four things How many people argue about which little metal piece you get to be your guy they care more about that Then whether they win or lose I care about that too because not to say I don't like those enjoy those four aspects But when you only care about those four aspects, you know, as long as you're the dog You don't care if you win. I prefer if I'm the dog riding the car like to be the battleship or the iron Okay, or the dog in the pimple so people they might move up from Monopoly and where do where it was You know something that you know gamers and non-gamers they move up for not believe where do they move? Poker this is the big game all over the country mostly, you know all over the world in fact I mean most adults they play Candyland with their kids Then they play Monopoly with their kids and then when the kids are no longer kids the kids probably start playing poker or a Similar card game This is the you know probably I don't have a data on this, right? But the most popular tabletop game probably well, I guess once you're old months the shouts yeah geezers move to bridge which is actually maybe a real game, right? But poker, you know, so how is poker different from Monopoly? How is this a step up and it's really only a step up in two ways right number one the psychological aspect, right? Where you you know you have to guess what the other people are thinking are they bluffing or they not bluffing, right? If you take that away, and you just play open hand poker, right? Well, you know it's back to almost Candyland and the second aspect is the gambling aspect You're gonna the thrill of winning and losing moneys, right other than that poker's random game now It's not to say there is not skill involved in poker poker is random once you are I can't say perfect player because the Theoretical perfect poker player is subject to the human failings and all these things But effectively if you get to a certain point in poker you already know the odds of a deck perfectly in your head You've memorized it You can keep track of all the different cards that you have seen and you can do basic analysis of other people's You know patterns and actions even though theoretically those should be random Eventually you hit this plateau where basically pretty much all poker players at that level are equal to each other But you can't really necessarily denigrate that skill because while it's random at that level if that dude plays poker against me He will likely beat me over a large number of games by a substantial degree a way You can tell right whether a game is a game of skill or how much luck is in the game is by looking at the Professional circuit of that game and see who the champions are tennis is pretty much perfect, right perfect skill game Who wins tennis the same dude every time it's the same three guys and you can clearly see You know Federer got better than he got worse and then the doll was winning but then it got injured now Joe Kovic is winning and he wins every tournament You know going forward the guy with the most skill wins 99% of the time in poker there are a bunch of people, right who repeatedly show up late in big poker tournaments, right? They're always there you see them, right? They're on TV constantly So there is some skill component that allows them to get late But they don't win every single tournament every time the way tennis does it's not one guy winning ten in a row Because he's better than everyone else, right? It sort of shuffles around and that you can see you know There's enough skill component to get you late in the tournament But then there's the luck component really decides who that final champions gonna be so if you want to move up From being the Candyland gamer to being I guess whatever we're gonna call ourselves Which I don't want to say hardcore because that means other things I guess jerks on the stage serious gamer I guess I don't want to be a jerk on the stage, right? There's some steps. You have to follow I don't know how many steps there are we're gonna go through them step number one you play to win Does anyone know who that is? You can always tell the sports people we tell the people listen to our show Right, okay, so this is Herm Edwards. He was the coach of the jets. I'm gonna tell this really quickly I hate the jets anyway with Giants fan, but anyway, he's he was losing right his team was sucking So they someone asked him at the press conference like hey Are you gonna lose games on purpose to get a better draft pick for next year? And he was like you play to win the game. It's it's a thing. It's on YouTube It's like his famous clip right the point is play to win a lot of you'll play games And they don't care if they win now That's not to say you should be a sore loser because that's just for you right if I lose I don't get upset and cry like a baby, you know, and I don't you know if I'm losing a game And I'm in the middle of I won't try to ruin it for everyone else. It's also not to say to be a sore winner I mean I'm not going to completely lord it over someone who is like I'll order over Scott But it's given tape right. Yeah, if I'm playing with a six-year-old I'm gonna be like what what what is that? There's a difference between you know real, you know friendly trash talk like oh And being like, you know seriously like being like boom, you know means you lost that game is your mom doesn't love you Yeah, but I mean he said that in a joking way I mean it's hard for me to even say things like that in a serious way But you know those jerks out there when they beat you will be like, you know you piece of shit Yeah, I owed you suck right don't be that but when you're playing a game For the entire time you are playing a game. You need to be trying to win that game now You might think but Raymond Scott I am trying to win You're not the vast majority of people playing games are not actually trying to win you think you are you're going through a lot of Motions, but you're not if you're actually trying to win you'd be approaching games very differently. All right So let's let's talk about some stories. So there's some games, right which You don't really try to win this game I mean you could you could try to win cards against humanity could try to win apples to apples, right? But really they're not about Dixit. You could try to win. They're not about winning these games They're about having fun and silliness and they're not necessarily Candyland, right? It's not some predetermined nonsense But it's about having a good time with your friends and I play these games all the time They're great. They're awesome party games and whatnot But don't play them too much because if you want to level up you got to spend time playing games strategy Now as an exercise you can think about these games and think to yourself while you're playing them and joking about Dixon Whatever, how would you try to win if you were serious trying to win these games in cards against humanity? You're trying to analyze the person who is doing the choosing to figure out what their idiom are They more a fan of racism or sexism like what is the thing you're going to get them with in Dixit Scott? And I will team up and we'll talk about teaming up and what that means later Yeah, but I'll be like hey Scott my car is is reminiscent of the anime we watched together two weeks ago Bam! Perfect Dixit play. Alright, so in these games don't try to win, right? But in a game like this you got to try to win, right? Let me tell you a story about this guy named Greg We were playing Settlers one of the first times he ever played Settlers In fact, it's the only time you ever played Settlers with cities and nights and there was some girl playing Settlers with us So what Greg did is rather than try to win he just kept giving her all his resources Because he wasn't trying to win the game. So what does that do for the rest of us? Well, she wins the game obviously and he's just wasting all our time being a jerk to us So you think griefing only happens online in Counter-Strike and Ex-Boss? Right, so I mean now you might not have been doing that exact same thing with that meta game trying to make this girl like you But giving her all your wood and sheep But at the same time Right, there are other you know if you're playing a game and you're not trying to win for any reason You are ruining the game for the other people playing if they are trying to win, right? And this is why the Candyland gamers and people like us can't play together so well, right? Well in Candyland playing to win and not playing to win are identical But in Settlers playing not to win just pisses us off, right? I mean I play with a little houses to yay, but you can't only do that You also have to put your houses in the right spot, you know roll the dice trade resources properly Which is not at all and so forth. Okay, so that's playing to win step two don't pay to win Right, so there are some games out there Especially a lot of video games these days which are pay to win as in whoever spends the most money wins the game Do not play these games at all ever. I mean, it's really easy to figure out how to win them Yes, you open your wallet the bill gates you will win now I put a magic here as as the as an example of CCGs Some CCGs are pay to win and some are not Magic used to be in the olden days when you could use a black lotus in a tournament Whoever could afford a black lotus was going to win. Yeah, I mean talking about old We are I stopped playing magic when fallen empires came out because I decided the game was played out I've started playing magic and fallen empires came out, but I stopped a couple years ago Yu-Gi-Oh is a pay-to-win game. Yes, a little story Tell us about the vanilla coke So we there was a Millennium games in Rochester near the Rochester games technology It's one of the better game stores in the country and they're having a Yu-Gi-Oh tournament So for early days of Yu-Gi-Oh way early for fun the game store owned all the best super valuable cards They constructed a deck of just the best cards They made pretty much the best tournament legal deck you could possibly make at the time and they put it into the tournament It was played by a can not a can but a 20 ounce bottle of vanilla coke It did win the tournament They gave the coke simple rules every turn it would draw a card And if it could it would play that card and any other cards it could play as fast as possible That is all it did it won the entire tournament now to be fair it was vanilla coke Yeah, that Pepsi would not have done so well But you see the point is whoever had enough money to buy that Yu-Gi-Oh deck would have won at Yu-Gi-Oh, right? It's not a contest of decisions you make in the game. It's not even randomness like Candyland It's the richest person wins now magic nowadays. They've gotten rid of a bunch of bullshit cards You know you do draft tournaments and things like that. The game is longer the game is more living It's more about the current set who was just like playing a long-form dominion really the modern set of magic Okay, then other games the tabletop wise because you know video games I'm sure you guys know what pay-to-win is in video games like tribes ascend right pay money get upgrades You're stronger than everyone right but miniatures some miniatures games are pay-to-win and Some are not the big pay-to-win ones are the clicks games right because it's collectible You can always tell it because anything were sold sealed collectible is going to be pay-to-win Oh, you got the much more powerful superhero. I don't have that guy. I can't win Warhammer right which is an example here It's not pay-to-win. It's pay-to-play right you you have a 2000 point army He is a 2000 point army. They're pretty much going to be relatively equal in power unless someone was dumb and constructing their army And everything's available if you can afford it right it's you don't you know You don't pay more money to win the tournament you pay more money to even get in yeah But tournament rules are basically you have to use the official figures and there's rules about what like some there's one power You got to paint the dude's red or you can't use it Yeah, so if you want to use red or not red you're gonna have two full sets one painted red one not painted red Yeah, but the guy who has more money in Warhammer isn't gonna win right He's just you just have to have enough money to even be able to enter in the first place okay, so next step in learning to Being not candyland gamer take your turn a lot of people when they play games they are slow They sit there and they think forever and the reason you have a picture of a choir is their friend Scott Johnson's here No, he was in the other panel He when he plays this game He has a certain mathematical formula where he can figure out the exact best move and his formula is a hundred percent correct It works every time he's won this game every time we've ever played it with him We don't play it anymore, but he is very slow at math So he sits there for like 10 minutes working this thing out to figure out what the move is and he figures it out correctly And then he wins now I could do the same algorithm and then the two algorithms would butt against each other I forget what determines who wins in that point, but it's not fun for me to do a term I use for this is brain feel like mouth feel for food some games have different brain feel and There are different orders of things you can let's let's take the game of poker since we're talking about it before a First order technique I can use is know the odds of poker If I don't know the odds of poker Then our you know a deck or even the odd like the progression of cards like does a full house be straight if I don't know that I'm gonna have a hard time winning so holding that in my head is like a first-order skill a second-order skill is Something like knowing the odds that a particular card is going to come up at a particular time That takes way more calculation in my brain to keep straight So it's a lot more mental effort am I willing to use both of those techniques to win? And then there's further and further techniques for every game How many of those are you willing to use is it worth it to you in this game? There's one that is perfect and guaranteed to win, but it's really not fun You know now the reason taking your turn is so important to take your turn quickly You might think well wait What I want to take my turn slowly and play perfectly and win like Scott Johnson the answer is no right by forcing yourself to Play quickly you're forcing yourself to think quickly to get better at it Right so Johnson never got better at a choir He's still you know he could have figured that math out and maybe 30 seconds if you would have you know forced himself to take his turn Quicker, but he didn't he just allowed himself all the time in the world You also get to play more games when you take your turn faster right because you can play more games in less time We bust out of Puerto Rico in like 45 minutes other people it takes two hours so we can play a lot more Puerto Rico's more on that later so Ticket to ride right is a game where the game is designed such that turns are fast right on your turn You only do a little thing this is actually relatively recent sort of Development in games used to be you would take your turn in a game and on your turn you did all this stuff I mean shogun we played shogun now. It's called. I think Iku saw yeah You only take maybe three turns in that game each one takes an hour Yeah, and it's like it's your turn now move all your troops It's the other guys turn out he moves all your his troops while you go to the bathroom You need some snacks right and take it to ride What do you do on your turn you either put one set of trains or take cards and that's it and it goes It's you know you take routes Yeah, but it's you know do a very small thing do a very small thing do a very small thing and go around very quickly Doing very small things each so if you were to do this in a war game would be move one troop now He goes move one troop now. He goes move one troop alright, so in games like this Taking your turn isn't really a problem in games like this taking your turn is a big problem Right this does actually have some of the development of take it to ride we played this yesterday We're gonna keep playing it probably five more times easily, but you know on your turn right you choose one action like upgrade Right, but even though you only take one action per turn and then it goes around the some of the actions are complicated You know move is not very complicated move some ships around But if you say research you might spend a lot of time trying to like figure out which science are gonna research You should have thought of that before right and this is a thing is a lot of people Don't pay attention to the game when it's not their turn when I'm playing a game. I'm the whole time I'm playing I'm thinking about the game because I'm playing to win now unless for example This is why taking your turn is such a good thing if you play the game enough to where you can make these decisions quicker Then you're free to socialize and do all these things because you've already made your decision But you have to get to that point I'm not paying attention to a lot of games most of the time when it's not my turn because I figured out what I'm Going to do a long time ago or I can calculate it quickly But if you haven't done that you've got to pay attention and if you keep doing that eventually you won't have to pay attention anymore a Secondary aspect of this is a lot of people take a lot of time on decisions That don't matter and if you keep doing that you'll never realize they don't matter a lot of decisions in games are Arbitrary in fact and we'll get to it very soon in these slides a lot of decisions that you may even an expert gamer players basically act randomly Until they have a clear vision of what to do for the rest of the game even very skilled players do it It's how humans make decisions, but there's a catch. We act randomly after eliminating all the obviously dumb decisions I'm not gonna move my guy to the place where he immediately gets taken in chess. I know that's a dumb move I don't try to follow the chain of me making that dumb move But in a lot of paper-rock scissors Making any Decision any thought spending any amount of time thinking about what you're going to pick is a ludicrous waste of time. It doesn't matter So yeah, the other thing is when you spend less time Thinking about what you're gonna do if you decide what you're gonna do you think about your options during other people's turns This leaves you more time to think about the next thing, right? The faster you make your decision the more you can narrow it down Eliminate you know not even think about decisions that don't matter like rock paper scissors The more time you have to think about the next thing that's coming in the game I know what I'm gonna research and then I'm gonna upgrade. What do I do after that? I'm already thinking about this, but I haven't even done that research yet. So it eventually the research happens I've already know the upgrade in the next move, you know, and yeah, that just helps everything totally be totally awesome. All right, so Play a lot. So we already touched on this playing a lot. There was a really mean play a lot There's a summer of I think 2001 was it the summer 2002 2002 2002 Scott and I and a couple of friends lived at RIT's campus all summer Nothing to do. So we broke out Puerto Rico and played it 10 1112 times a day. I don't know it was that many times every day times a day depends on the day All right, we played this game on most people, you know, they might buy a board game and play it You know three four times once a few every few months once at a convention, right? It's like no no no if you do that you're never going to figure anything out You need to play the game a lot Keep playing it play it over and over again. If it's a really good game, you should like doing that. You like gaming, right? Keep playing it and every time you finish playing it Don't just put it away and or play it again immediately Stop and think and look at it, you know We every time we finished one of those Puerto Rico games We sat there and looked at the Puerto Rico and said I screwed up two turns ago and I took the captain I should have taken the trader because there was only one spot left in the trading house And I had a coffee and then you captained too quick and made me put my coffee on the boat and that ruined me All right, and once you realize those sorts of things by looking back at game after game after game That's how you wait a minute. The guy who has corn always wins in a three-player game Or wait a minute the guy sitting to the left of Scott always loses And then we start trying to shuffle for who sits where enough to start rolling dice to figure it out So, you know a lot of people they don't play any game Enough to really figure anything out about the game except for you know pros might play some video games constantly And they're focusing on just that one look at you magical drop guy. Yeah, whoever was playing me a magical drop yesterday See the pro Okay, the other thing you need to do is not just play a lot of one game right play a lot of all kinds of games All right people you know they tend to focus on one thing like they're a fighting game guy And they play fighting games and if you try to get into play something else He doesn't want to do that well You might learn a lot about fighting games and be able to beat anyone at fighting games doing that But you're not gonna learn a lot about gaming in general your skills are not gonna be Applicable your knowledge will not be expanded right you know that thing he learned in fighting games is actually gonna be quite useful In a lot of board games, but he's not gonna play the board games because he's fighting game guy So the reason I have an indie RPG slide here is because this is an example of how far games go Right in the RPG world how many people just play D&D and that's it They don't ever play anything else if they do play anything else they play something That's basically D&D with a different that's not fantasy, but it's still basically the same exact game Maybe with different size dice, but it's still the same exact. Yeah, but no play that the example I was used as a game called dread survival horror role-playing game. No use dice use Jenga Said Jenga up the middle of the table. That is the conflict resolution mechanism for that game Yeah, so you know there are lots and lots and lots of games out there, right? There's even these obscure self-published indie RPGs That's how crazy the gaming world is if you are not exploring the entire gaming world at least a little bit Right, I mean everyone has their focuses, but you got to go and taste all the waters to see what they all taste like So if you haven't played a board game that has a rondle in it, or you don't know what a rondle is You haven't played in a board game with a rondle besides you Nobody right okay. I played like three rondle games. It's the antique a aura and laborer There was another one. I Forget aren't that many there aren't that many, but they're good Okay, so play lots and lots of different games and when you know when you find good games play them a lot So you can figure them a whole bunch of people got their stuff. I was like a rondle They're gonna spell rondo properly. Let's say we'll say okay. This is risk legacy. You know the risk legacy even is You can stop raising your hand People know okay, so risk legacy is a game where you actually permanently change the risk as you play You're supposed to play it 13 times. I think I'll put the sticker on the board Oh write your name on the board in this spot right marker and there's these sealed packages in the box And you're supposed to open like open the first time a faction is eliminated from the game, right? You don't know what's in there Yeah, so it's like you play risk and then you stop and then you may be in the second game is the first time Someone gets eliminated and then you open that and you have no idea what the hell is in there But it's open forever right? It's like if you want to really play risk legacy multiple times for reels You got to buy more sets because you're permanently opening these bits in them and stuff like that And the reason that this is in here is to show you need to not only play a lot and play a lot of games You need to be committed to these games that you are playing right a lot of people, you know They don't show up on game night, you know how many our game night has this problem to show up one week And I'll show up the next week or I want to play this D&D campaign show up make characters never show up again Well, there's a more subtle problem, and you've all experienced it, and it's the same thing with running I mean I thought about I was gonna get up this morning go running before the Megfest that I Would have if the fire alarm went off. I like to go That is my excuse But how many of you are gonna try to get people to play a board game a pretty hardcore one and people like yeah I don't really want to play it, but if you trick them into playing it. They have a great time They just don't think they want to play it until they're playing it You've got to power through that and actually play the game Yeah, when you set up you got to be able to set up risk legacy and play it 13 times and show up all 13 times to play it and then that's the only way you can really learn what's really going on I don't feel too bad. How many times are we on risk legacy? How many times have we played it Darrow? Did you bring it? No, I didn't bring it. I thought we're gonna play once every magfest for 13 magfest Yeah, and then I had to go to Istanbul all right really I'm flying Sunday night to Istanbul direct from here And I found out after I was packed to come to magfest so if you want to level up out of Candyland play games many times each play many many different games of all kinds and Be committed to the games that you're playing show up and keep playing them. Okay next step climb the ladder so we're gonna talk about a lot of sort of game theory and Theory of games which are kind of distinct and we're gonna bring up a lot of stuff So I'm gonna tell you right now if you are interested in everything we say from this point There's a book you can read by Richard Garfield the guy who made Magic the Gathering Magic the Gathering? And it's also written by some of his co-author with some of his associates like guys who invented the magic tournament and stuff like that It is called characteristics of games and you can email us or it looks like a boring ass textbook But it's actually readable from front to back you can skip the you know the like Workshop things you know the questions is supposed to answer though. They're good questions. They are good questions It's a lot of here's the picture that it asks who is winning in this game right? So it's actually a picture of shoots and ladders and it shows a big-ass ladder One player is one space before the big-ass ladder, so they might land on it and go all the way to the top Right another player is ahead of them, but he's beyond the big-ass ladder He has no chance of that ladder anymore Which of those players is in first place? Now the answer is there's no such thing as catch-up mechanisms in games If you could have caught up you weren't actually behind catch-up mechanisms only exist because the scoring track or the scoring rubric or the Positional heuristic which we'll get to in a second is obscured from you the player the game is assuming you don't understand the game Well enough to figure it out. There's no way to catch up. Yeah, so a positional heuristic right when you are playing a game You use heuristics, right? It's a heuristic is how you decide something a flow chart a logical pathway, right? So a positional heuristic in a game is the math you use the process you use for Determining who is ahead and who is behind now some games is very straightforward a lot of games have just a scoring track You'd think oh whoever's ahead is winning a Mario Kart has first place second place third place you guys played Mario Kart the guy in first place is not the one who's gonna win Well, you might be right. It's more complicated than that. You might say well. We know the blue shell exists We know it's gonna come out like once every lap or two right is two laps left The guy in first place probably isn't actually gonna win because the blue shell Second place is actually in first place attack the guy in second place first place will get his anyway, right? So now you've advanced to the next level, but there's a further level What if the guy in first place is ahead by like 45 seconds, right? Well, even a blue shell probably isn't gonna let anyone catch up to him So he is actually in first place So the game a games present to you a way to determine how far ahead you are most Panyland gamers never sort of like they look at a game and they think whatever the scoring thing is that is Who is ahead? But who's actually ahead in a game is a much more complex concept The problem with positional heuristics is once you start to figure them out a lot of games become very Non-fun to play for example a lot of games the strategy to actually win is to fall behind at critical moments Catch up later keeping track of who's actually winning is very Difficult and time-consuming and the brain feel is not good. Get you the game you feel like Mario Kart's racing game I want to just push and go as fast as I can and win as soon as the obvious Analogy of the game is not the way to win the game feels very unsatisfying So if you follow all of our advice from this point forward a lot of games are getting a lot less fun to us settlers is candyland Straight up settlers of guitar is in a non-game. I can't it's there's no reason for me to bother playing Now the other thing about positional heuristics right is that when you have different players using different ones People get fooled a lot and this matters mostly in games where there's what we like to call direct fucking Now characteristics of games this book the reason Garfield's book is so important is that it gives us a lexicon For talking about these things. We always call these games direct fucking games He calls them highly political games or specifically chip-taking games So the chip-taking game for those of you don't know pretend It's basically the vote who wins game right let's say I have three chips I actually have three glass cups a two-player game of this. I want to go first Fine alright, so in the vote who wins game pretend. It's a three-player game There's another guy with candyland. He's got three candies. Okay, so we'll call this mystery man mystery woman, right? Okay, so rim goes first like he wants he all he does is vote He votes for somebody to lose a token Scott you lose a token. I lose one whoever runs out is is out of the game Okay, last man standing wins mystery woman votes for red. Hey, hey, hey and Scott votes for him because rim's a jerk I vote for Scott Mystery woman really doesn't like rim votes him out of the game Sky wins way and I vote for mystery woman who still has two left Oh, you know my positional heuristic was wrong and then she votes for me and now she has two left right and I lose It's a vote who wins game You have no idea how many games you play are the vote who wins game in disguise You have no idea if you're playing like a war game with more than two players is Vote who wins game diplomacy is the vote who wins the actions you take in the analogy of the game Aren't what matters it doesn't matter what the kind of like strategy you're using what matters is which individual player did you hurt What else is a vote who wins game now any game where you can directly where there's more than two players because if there's only two Players you're just gonna keep voting for the other guy for time, right? If there's more than two players and you can directly attack another player 90% chance. It's the vote who wins now This is why three player games in particular are almost impossible to design unless they are just paper-rock scissors Because if they're not paper-rock scissors They end up becoming just a literal matter of which two players gang up on a third player Because if the two of us collude against mystery woman We have a 50% chance of winning as opposed to a 33% chance of winning one player Always gets wrecked by the other two players in a three-player game If at least two of the players are smart and this is why the positional heuristic is so important in the games of vote Who wins in this chip taking game? Everyone could plainly see who is winning who had the most chips remaining or for examples mall of horror every time We play a game like that Scott tells the entire group of people were playing with repeatedly Rim is winning don't vote for rim in the vote who wins game I still win every goddamn time because they look and they because it's not as simple as just how many chips Does someone have anyone can obviously see who's ahead and who needs to be voted down, right? It's obscured They think he's in second place in Mario Kart now They're voting for the guy who's in first place in Mario Kart, but that guy's not the really guy So they're voting against someone else and I'm like guys rim is yeah It says he's in second place, but really he's in first place. You're all dumb I'm the only one with the correct positional heuristic vote against rim He has more chips than anyone yet somehow even people who play multiple games with the two of us Never listen to Scott and I still win Listen to me if you play a game with me do what I say vote against rim. Don't do what he says. He's just trying to make you lose So I'm also trying to make me win So that's a positional heuristic You really need to think about positional heuristics when you play a game if you don't want to be a candyland person, right? Think about who is really in first place. It's not as simple as the score Settlers of Catan because a lot of guys have played it. It is a really good game If someone's behind in victory points, but they're one card away from largest road and largest army They're probably actually winning even though the score is behind But yet most people ignore them and attack the guy who has one extra city and then they lose You might see a game of football one team is down by a touchdown But they've got the ball on like the one-yard line and it's first down They're gonna score or get a field goal or something right there They're actually ahead at this point and you know, yeah, sure they could fail But really they are ahead at this point in terms of you know calculating You know, you're better off letting them scores and get the ball back with Scott. I'm from Detroit. So well, you're never gonna win So positional heuristics really important just as important as business in all heuristics the other kind Directional heuristics you got two bridges one really nice looking one or even really shady looking one which one do you take? Not just which one do you take? How do you decide which one to take? What is your method of making this decision? The rickety one looks really dangerous. Oh, but wait, this is a video game They're probably trying to make me think that I bet the safe one's actually really much more dangerous So now it becomes the question of which point which cup has the poison in it at least in this example But in every board game or every game period, there's how do you decide what to do on your turn, right? Puerto Rico you've got six roles to choose from captain craftsman trader builder, right? Which one do you choose? How do you decide which one it is that you're going to pick now? Many of you know we talked about decisions before many of you and many people at this convention Will agonize over decisions that are actually arbitrary like you can it is possible in a lot of games to Calculate a large degree of the game very early in the game But you probably don't have the capacity to do that quickly in a setting like this or in any setting So don't try to do it. It's not going to get you anywhere Do what humans do best eliminate obviously dumb actions and once you have like a set of moves left And you can't easily figure out which one is better pick one of them randomly That'll do pretty well for you in most games If you can't figure out though if you still want to go a little bit better Pick the one that based on the simplest positional heuristic you can come up with gives you the most advancement on that track I'll tell you so take it to ride. We were talking about before here's my directional heuristic for what do I do on my turn? And take it to ride right well question number one right do I have uncompleted routes? Yeah, I do right question number two What is the hardest thing I need to fill to you know? What is the hardest link I need the most difficult one in order to fulfill my route? Okay, it's that one needs six yellows. You know how many yellows do I have do I need more? You know can I play it right now? No, I can't play it right now. All right. Are there yellows available? You know if there is a yellow available, I'll take it if not I'm just gonna take phase down ones right because it doesn't matter right. That's the color I need most of soon enough. I'm gonna take the face down ones If I have completed all my routes, you know how late is it in the game? If it's late in the game, then I'm not gonna be able to finish any new routes So I won't draw new ones if it's still relatively early in the game people have a lot of trains left Then I will draw new routes because I'll probably I've already finished the ones I have I'll probably be able to you know use the pieces. I've already linked and link up a few Scouts got a fairly simple list of if thens in his head And he's just applying that to the data that he has available every turn Yeah, I rambled like for a minute or two because you know it's not the simplest game But that really wasn't that hard right and it took me time to develop that the first time I played tickets Right, it's like what do I do on my turn? I have no fucking clue That train looks nice Right you start off with the came you land and then you move up realize oh don't take the trains that are completely useless But the key is you can do a lot of math to figure this stuff out But it'll come naturally if you just play games a lot if you all play settlers of Catan enough you'll solve it You'll play it the way pros do yeah people like take it to ride But it took me like you know ten plays at least to figure out all that stuff We played sellers for well over a year before we started to realize it was you know Solvable and started to study this game theory stuff and like figure things out Yes, I mean I played I played ticket to ride ticket ride Europe was free on the iPhone So I got it played against the computer. I never lost using that method right which I don't think I described the full method But that was that was most of it most of it Yeah, so you need to develop directional heuristics for all your games But to develop them don't agonize over decisions that don't matter play You know just narrow it down as best you can and then after that pick randomly your turns will go quicker if you play four games Where you acted randomly for half the game you'll learn more than you play one game and you acquire the entire time All right, so next step transfer your power right and this is get it power grid Yeah, it's the game is power grid ha ha power grid is it is a great game because it combines so many different things You've got an auction on power plants. You've got resource management You've got a stock market basically for the resource of commodities market. You've got a territory grabbing on You know the share you got an obvious built-in catch-up mechanism where whoever's behind every round gets a huge boost So it's very obvious to people who play this game more than once you want to fall behind on purpose But it's very easy and obvious how to do that this game teaches a lot of fundamental concepts that apply to I Don't know easily over half of the good board games out yet So the reason we say transfer power is you develop a positional heuristic who's really in first place in power grid It's not the guy who looks like is in first place right and once you learn that in power grid You can bring that same exact heuristic to a different similar game, right power grid has an auction for power plants You're gonna develop a directional heuristic for deciding how much do I bid on these power plants? Guess what modern art in Pizarro? Primarily auction games you'll be better at both of those games if you get better at power grid Yeah, so you get a tramp when you learn something in one game You have to apply it to all the other games that have the same thing going on take it to ride as a card draft on the side for The train tickets lots of games have card drafts like seven wonders, which is nothing but a card draft, right? This game is a single mechanic game It is a card draft end of story if you don't know what a card draft is Anyone says the word drafting think you know like sports NFL draft, right? There's all these players available you pick one right when you go to the kickball field and you say I'll take Jimmy I'll take bimmy all right. That's a draft when there's five different colored trains and you say I'll take blue That's a draft all right seven wonders someone hands you a hand of seven cards You pick one and you pass the rest to the left now part of the draft it's the you might not think of it The mechanical skills of games are very important too You know many games of dominion or slowed down that I see happening at this con right now Because half the people at the table don't know how to shuffle cards Learning how to shuffle cards is as important as learning how to figure out how to run an auction And that's another skill that will transfer between every card game ever Right you need to shuffle if you're gonna play a card game you need to be able to roll dice You need to be able to count those are basic skills I hope everyone has but there are these other advanced skills right that still they transfer between games now You can learn how to cheat with dice That could help I guess yeah, it could help a lot What if you could always roll seven because you're just that good But you need whatever it is you need to there are all these basic gaming skills that transfer between almost every game You need to learn and develop all of them so you can sit down with a new game, right? Like if I'm sitting down to play a brand new game, you know It doesn't really matter who I play with everyone's learning together I know one's played it before but if I know that person doesn't have a lot of general game skills They're the Candyland gamer. I might be reluctant to play with them Even though I like them because it's gonna be slow They're not gonna do well because they don't shuffle the cards quickly or they're not they can't quickly make change Or you know, they don't understand. I can't just say to them. Yeah, okay. We're gonna do a card draft It's it's draw five they don't know what that means thus the problem Like I kind of mentioned earlier if you follow our advice at all You will rapidly start to hate the majority of your friends and not want to play games with him anymore If you do any of the things we've talked about but you can come play eclipse with us. It'll be okay okay, so Solved right who's fate there's some people who've told me you can't solve a game You never know what the other guy's gonna do. It's not like a math problem. You solve. Is there anyone here who thinks you can't solve a game? Okay, you really seeded that question to where no one was gonna raise that's good All right because anyone who thinks they can't solve the game You know what I say to them tick-tock toe put your hand down, right? Everyone knows the solution to tick-tock toe, right? right Is there anyone here who would lose at tick-tock toe if they went first anyone? No, the solution to tick-tock toe is whoever goes first wins or draws at best The second player can't have best fours a draw now. This is very illustrative and very important all games all games are solvable Either in a complete and perfect sense in that there is a 100% answer or they are solvable in the sense that you can Decide and figure out a perfect set of actions beyond which the game is entirely random There are other classes of games because of human psychology and BS like some games are more effectively Arbitrary like paper-rock scissors because while paper-rock scissors is completely random There is an AI out there that will beat any of you at paper-rock scissors because one thing humans are very bad at is Generating randomness. We are parables at pouring water into glasses And it acting randomly so you think you're acting randomly when you're playing paper-rock scissors But the algorithm will actually figure out your pattern It basically derives your random number generator in your head and starts beating you on average and the longer you play it the more It beats you So you know chess, right? And you've been trying to solve chess for a long time now chess is Possible to solve in that there is a mathematical solution to it We it is there could one day be a computer that knows every single possible arrangement of a chess board and the best Possible to move to make in that position. It is highly likely in our lifetime Chess will be absolutely solved now some years ago. I think it was 2007 Checkers was solved. There's a weak mathematical They ran some computers for some ridiculous number of years just brute-forcing checkers They determined that both sides can force a draw no matter what and no side can force a win So perfect play of checkers is a guaranteed draw Now we don't know and chess maybe the first player wins and can force a win in chess Maybe that's true. We don't know that yet Chess is so much more complicated than checkers that we just don't have computers The solution exists We just don't have it because it's so complex the same thing with go a solution to go on a certain size board exists We just don't know it yet because it is so Computationally intensive we need a bigger computer to figure it out, right? So when you're playing games, obviously you can't come up with these mathematical solutions because you don't have a super computer in your brain Or even in your house, right? It's not gonna happen I may be one person at the convention as a degree to where if they had the super computer They would even know what to do with it, right? But what you will do is you will solve games sort of practically, right? You didn't know I haven't solved at st. Petersburg in the sense that I can write add to academic paper I get a Nobel Prize or some shit like that, right? But I have solved st. Petersburg in the sense that I have a positional heuristic and directional heuristics to where If it's possible for me to win, I'm gonna win. I'm gonna make the best possible move I can make on my turn I've played it so many times with so many people It's a very very confident that if we play this game I don't really make decisions when I play this game because I know what to do three turns in the games Decided we could just stop there Yeah, we could if I'm playing with the other people who have achieved the same level of st. Petersburg enlightenment And know that Plajomkin's village is fake You know we can all just flip over the cards in the deck see what turn the judge would appear and I know that yeah Okay, you're gonna get the judge so the odds of you winning are really good because there wasn't another judge on that turn And that's much more powerful card and whatever so one way to figure this stuff out If you play a lot of games with a group of people if there's one asshole Who keeps winning one game way more often than everyone else they know something you don't they are doing something You're not doing you need to figure out what they're doing But once you all win this game equally like we play tiggers and Euphrates a lot Me us and two other people we win about 25 percent of the time So we've either maxed out our skill and then our heuristics are not really gonna get better Either because of human limitations or we're just dumb or whatever it might be or Our group of players has become very static and biased in the panel. We were just in dr. Hazard We were talking about the idea that what one other thing humans are bad at is recognizing their own bias I keep buying the hacienda in five player Puerto Rico in the first round. I keep losing I keep doubling down and thinking you know what the hacienda is still the best decision But I recognize this is dumb, but I feel like it's the right decision. Anyway, I So I'm just as a magical drug because she's the cutest, but I keep losing to everyone who picks death Do I want to win more do I want to pick the cutest character more? So you might run into the situation where you play I don't know Puerto Rico with your four friends at home Like every day you're doing what we're saying you all win an equal percentage chance at the time Then you come to bank fest and you play with one stranger and they roll you Well you guys that all got unbiased into this sort of static system and then someone disrupted You went from a big fish in a small pond to a tiny fish at magfest. Yeah, yeah A lot of really good gamers here There's a famous old story about you know go and incredibly Go might not be solved in our lifetime because the number of positions in go is So ridiculously high or the number of atoms in the universe The size of the universe it is many orders of magnitude many greater than chess which itself is many orders of magnitude You're great like a parallel universe and that parallel universe would be the computer that solved go You read the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy the first one. Yeah, okay So the story was that you know because there wasn't a lot of communication go was a huge game in Japan Still is there was there were Nobles who were the champions of go in their provinces in their regions They were invited to the capital to play with the courts and the court Strategies had moved so far beyond what they had played in their home provinces that they couldn't compete They were like children when they arrived at court because these are people who are like You know the few educated people from a village and they're playing with the people in that village You know and then the court is like well There's tons of people in the frigging big cities in Edo or Tokyo or whatever right so they go there and there's those People in playing and so many different people they've all built up these much much better much more advanced Like advanced wars like when I come to I go at home. I was playing magical drop Yeah, I was doing rolling me. I was rolling everybody a new year's magical drop five. I come here magical drop three I'm dead in three seconds, and that's not even an exaggeration. I was literally dead. Yeah, I play soul caliber at home I'm really good. I play here. I don't even get a hit it. Yeah So Tigger's in your Freddy's right. This is the example of the game It's like we can't mathematically solve it even though that's possible right and or at least haven't solved it yet And also we have not practically solved it either Right it's like we've played this game with tons of people tons of times perhaps our favorite game there is and Still I do something different every time because I mean if there's some small aspects like certain opening moves I know are good and you know certain You know I can tell when it's right to build a monument when it's worth it to put a catastrophe things like that I have directional heuristics. I have positional heuristics even though the cubes are hidden You basically it's a game where everyone's score is hidden behind the shields You don't know who's really ahead you have to remember but overall I don't you know win all the time I only win a bunch of times cuz I'm smart All right, so The last step is that you should continue gaming right even though right when you solve a bunch of games Like we have solved a bunch of games right and they become boring to you don't want to play settlers anymore You don't play St. Petersburg anymore, right keep playing games Anyway, there is more games coming out all the time right that you might pick one up And I picked up seasons and it was boring But we learned something playing it even though I'm probably gonna sell it because it's not that good now these euro sort of German style board games You know we use a lot of those as examples If you want to kind of step up your game They're the games to play as opposed to the abstract games like chess checkers and go not that they're not great games But the scope of strategy in chess a zero-order heuristic I'm playing randomly the odds of meeting anyone let alone a good chess player basically zero So maybe I use one order of skill I try to anticipate one move ahead if I move what will my opponent do that? Multiplies my chance of victory by hundreds of times say I try to calculate two moves ahead Way more difficult suddenly, but still gives me a huge return on investment Three four five six as I continue to be able to calculate further out It takes much much more mental effort, but also has a diminishing return So the graph of how much reward I get for my effort kind of looks like this it starts to taper off I have to spend years of studying openings to get that next little it and then years of memorizing old games to get it So the sweep of playing a game from all being beginners to all being experts is a lifetime A human can spend their entire life playing chess and never reach an end game Meanwhile settlers of Catan Carcassonne these games have all the same kind of aspects of these really complex abstract games But one they have theme they have style and socialization all these other things that you know We all enjoy in games. There's nothing wrong with being the Candyland gamer, but to you every one of you can experience What a chess master experiences in their entire life over the course of a year or two Play settlers of Catan regularly for two years You'll go from noobs to the end game where you're all experts no one trades with anyone It's the silent dice rolling game and someone wins This is why you see the German board game type people the Euro gamers right a chess person They show up and they play chess and that's all they play a counter strike person They play counter strike that is their jam They their entire life is dedicated Euro gamers They show up with sacks full of all these different games right They don't show up with just one game and play it over and over again They had all these different games are constantly playing them because you know anyway So this is our website and the name of our podcast which you shouldn't listen to We have here at many conventions in fact We're going to be our third and final panel at magfest back in panel five right after this We're gonna be on some we're on some panel someone else is moderating about game genres as part of the gaming intellectual series Yeah, but we're at packs packs and packs East Prime in Australia You know tons of other cons and make Boston we go to all sorts of stuff and Lectures and panels like this. So if you thought this was enjoyable at all Or you want to go heckle us because you think we're jerks because we're telling you you're all scrubs We don't play games hardcore Usually I didn't practice this panel. So I'd have the timing. Yeah, I'll let you in on a secret This is like a beta brand new lecture that we're kind of refined. Well, it's an old one that we redid The same game but different and now we're refining it. We're gonna run this at packs Australia next year All right, so act I didn't time it when I prepared it So it's actually five minutes too short which means I guess we had to take questions if you hate to do now If you have sucked at asking so So we have Scott's rules of question asking if you have a question that you're afraid to ask because of these You want to ask a question that you must follow these rules or I will shut you down number one You have to actually ask a fricking question none of this telling a story nonsense No one cares number two Keep it short. No one wants to see you. They're talking for like five minutes. We're up here You're down there you ask the question one two sentences. You're done though with the secret to being up here Just email somebody the kind will probably give you a stage. Yeah. Yeah, number three. You need to stay on topic I don't want to hear any questions about something that has nothing to do with anything. We just said in the past hour Number four. It can't be something about you like I'm trying to do this. Can you help me? No There's a hundred other people in this room not a hundred. We're sorry if these seem brus, but we've been to a lot You know what people kind of questions people ask, you know, so mr. Garfield. I'm trying to make a MOBA on my own It's called the name of my game. Oh my website is blah and I'd like to ask you What do you think of puppies? Yes, your question should be relevant to everyone in this room something Everyone in the room will care about and lastly you can't promote your own shit get your own stage Let's just reap across the room Oh What are some of the best two-player games that fit in this now? It's interesting question two-player games and again You should all read Richard Garfield's characteristics of games because we just touched on like two chapters of that book briefly So two-player games are the best competitive games Because if you have more than two players then it's all direct fucking chip-taking pretty much immediately and I mean ways to mitigate There are certain amounts of chip-taking that's gonna go on But if you have two more than two players the chip-taking vote who wins is gonna factor in at least some amount So two players is the only way to completely eliminate that because you're always voting for yourself to win and voting for the other Now three-player games are the worst compared to other numbers of players No, and if it's a team game you count the teams not the players So to actually answer your question two-player games that are actually good and aren't just rock-paper-scissors or chess and go Right so battle line battle line by Rainer Knizia is extremely good Lost cities by also a Rainer Knizia is okay. Good net. Android net runner Android net Also written by Richard Garfield. Yeah, man, man. We're selling Android netrunner is a recent card game. You can play things like Dominion to player You can play a Gricola to player. It sucks to player. It's you can still play it No, but it was good one. She asked for good ones So if you want to do what we're talking about in this panel play battle line Locusts Nendoro Nile said in Android Android netrunner. Yeah, block is which is an abstract game, but it's short Yeah, block. This is really good. There's a little out-of-print game called. Oh, she It was made by the same thing A lot of people played sewer out there the game where the dragons go and fall off the edge Oh, she if you can find it is an abstract game, but it's very small Now it's actually just the same as a game called nim Which is actually just the same as you know basically anyway to skip all the game theory stuff That is a small abstract game that is to player that you can figure out and pretty much solve all of you in the Span of maybe 50 or 100 playthroughs as opposed to 50,000 Playthroughs for checkers another good to player game is make a third friend. That's a great game No, because then you're stuck with the three player game problem quite make a fourth friend, too Good games that have multiple mechanics like we talked about Scott will disagree with me I think an old game called El Grande El Grande has a lot of mechanics and also a lot of sort of interesting heuristics like we call it left right Some games it matters who sits on your left and who sits on your right some games it doesn't you if you play El Grande Seven or eight times you're gonna figure out how important the order at the table is and as soon as you sit down and your friend Kind of gets up to get water and sits down somewhere else. You'll realize you've solved something in this game It has Information that is hidden but not secret Meaning you put that like you put cubes in a castle and you can't see them in there But you announce when they go in so it teaches you how to keep those numbers in your head Or it teaches you whether or not those numbers are actually important. It has a rondle-esque element in it It has bidding for initiative It has the Colonel blotto game which is area control and as all these pieces together It's a five-player game and it has king making in it It also has king breaking in it all these sort of game mechanics are all there and the game is relatively simple to learn And play also eclipse. It's pretty much the game of games these days Eclipse does not teach those mechanics. No, it doesn't eclipse is when you already know them. Yes I'll teach you all these mechanics together if you play if you play El Grande you will learn our power grid or both of them you will touch on almost every core game mechanic There is all right. We've managed to kill all the time. I don't know if we want to take one more question Just and right is it one more because you understand right as we almost So I had a big discussion about this with some of the gaming intellectuals last night And I had an argument with some of my co-workers. I work in Wall Street and you know We designed a very different kind of evil sort of game and He's a father and he used to play a lot of games and he hadn't for a while so he's playing games again and The consensus in every one of these discussions was that pretty much yes Because what we found is that most kids who you know starting around five years old six seven depending on their like How quickly they're blooming and coming of age intellectually they'll play Candyland because family board game That's what you do, but they secretly don't like it. They don't realize they don't know they don't like it But they're not having fun But if you take really young kids and just throw monopoly at them They'll like it at first because there's all these bits and then they start to lose And then they get frustrated and they want to get better But unlike Candyland there is a way to get better So monopoly, you know, we kind of shadow over monopoly for a while It is a terrible game for a six year old a seven year old Monopoly will teach them why it's a bad game. They'll learn counting They'll learn valuation they'll learn all these concepts and in my experience almost every child will rise to the challenge And they'll turn into someone like me, of course So they'll be kind of a dick. It depends on the child. Obviously, right, you know, whichever kid it is better than we do We don't you know Uh Children are smarter than you think they are even if you know the children are smarter than you think they are Right. Um, and then there are games that are sort of the in-between game where decisions matter But at the same time, they're not so complex like eclipse and the kids won't get bored It can get made kids sit still for three hours to play eclipse unless it's a really special kid who's awesome, right? So you can go for something like, you know, the pokemon card game It's a ccg. There's a little bit of pay-to-win going on But guess what they're going to learn to count and add some There was just a study shuffle cards It was a few years ago. It talked about how the pokemon card game kids who play that a lot Are way better performers in school Just now, maybe it's a correlation or a causation. We don't know, but there's a play in the game. Yeah, obviously So yeah throw kids right Seriously throw kids right into hardcore games. They will rise to the challenge. There's so much fascinating to expect Like most I saw a bunch of five year olds five or six I'm old. I can't tell anymore. Her old kids are there were young kids and a parent was like playing uh, the baby version like kids of katam for the kids and they were playing it and two of the kids were Just like really frustrated the whole time. It's like and the kids sitting there and he sounds like a mini me He's like, there's nothing I can do. It's just random. I can't win. This is stupid We also want to make sure right a lot of times the kids play games. We're really going over our time We've gone three minutes over they're playing against, you know the adults in the family at this game It's like no you need to get them into a situation where they're playing pokemon card game against other kids regularly Right so that they can all learn from each other But you need to occasionally play against dad when I was a kid I played ping pong Dad's gonna get you got to wait till dad gets hosed. That's when you know you've made it Ping pong is like was like my thing for a long time and my dad was like a champion at ping pong So I could never beat him so he'd give me a handicap of 18 and he still beat me I'd play against neighborhood kids and you know, we'd all progress together But every now and then my dad would make me play and he'd crush me just to remind me that I had a long way to go Now obviously you don't want the dad to crush the kid and trash talk the kid If you don't win you're up for adoption So if you have more questions if you have any comments if you have anything Grab a flyer. These are old flyers from pecs east 2010. I think But our website is here and a qr code 17 or 18 of our previous lectures from other conventions on similar topics are all on youtube You can just watch the whole things we're going to try to put this on youtube And like I said, if you have more questions email them to us we will do a video q&a like response Within a month or so. Yeah. All right. Thank you. Thank you all